Transcript: Will You Survive? Must Have Super Powers of Your Next Employee

We spend a lot of time talking about collaboration and talking about teams, but it's really the individuals that we select to be in our teams that are going to help transform our organizations overall, our industry. Super users, if people have ever heard the phrase before, think of it primarily in terms of somebody who really excels at using software. And I'm using it in a slightly different way. The super users I've identified within the architecture, engineering, and construction field are those that have the wherewithal to recognize a tool.

They have the curiosity to inquire into tools, the confidence to mess around with tools, the capacity to learn or take on new tools, creativity to combine tools. But here's the most important thing that most people don't recognize. They also have the interpersonal intelligence to connect with others. So much of our learning today, as you know better than anybody, is through social learning. I think the reason why the Gen Zs, they are perfectly situated to walk into the super user role isn't just because they're digital natives.

They don't stigmatize technology. They came up with it. It's very natural for them. I think even more important to that, to this point, is the fact that Gen Zs are very entrepreneurial. They're not at all entitled.

They are very loyal. They want to pay their dues. So they're actually right now looking forward for the next five to seven years to come into the AEC industry and work hard, do everything they can to help transform the industry. They're going to graduate in May or June, and they're gonna embark out into the world. I don't see themselves plugging themselves into an architecture firm, an engineering firm, a construction company right away, because that's not the way they think if there wasn't such a thing as an architect, an engineer, or a contractor, or even a fabricator right now.

And you didn't have to actually pick which track you were going in in school. Let's say you just graduated with an AEC degree, and then you went whatever direction you go in. I think we're going to see in the next five or 10 years much more of an overlap of these roles, to the point where we're gonna start questioning whether these individual firms are even necessary. Hello, and welcome to the Constructor Podcast, the future of the built environment. I'm your host, Brittany Campbell Turner, and this podcast is dedicated to helping property owners have certainty in their decisions about their construction project.

We talk about fostering trusting relationships, help you to understand how to lower risk, be under budget and on schedule, and most importantly, exceed your end user's desires. Welcome to this episode of the Constructor Podcast. Last time we spoke with a colleague of mine at Mace, Marcia Bulpagni. She is a BIM management consultant, BIM dictionary co-editor, and BIM advocate. We had an excellent conversation on what good BIM looks like today, and compliance within public regulations and client specification.

Last but not least, we talk about how to maximize BIM level two requirements with PASS 1192 and how we're transitioning to ISO 19650, as we're actually moving forward to leverage a new supplemental standard. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, check it out at constructor.com slash Marcia Bulpagni. That's M-A-R-Z-I-A B-O-L-P-A-G-N-I. Today we're speaking with Randy Deutsch. He's an architect, educator, author, and speaker.

He's received the AIA Young Architect Award in Chicago for having designed 100 large complex sustainable projects. I really enjoyed my discussion with Randy, and to give you a little sense of the topics we cover, first of all, we talk about what a super user is and how they have the wherewithal to recognize tools. They're curious, they have the capacity to use those tools, some creativity, and last but not least, amongst others, they have interpersonal intelligence. They have the ability to connect well with others, so we dig into that quite a bit.

We talk about this current cohort, this Gen Z, that might just be the perfect generation to step into the super user role. And last but not least, we cover the 10 superpowers that are embodied in a super user and why companies should be looking for recruits that have these superpowers, or if a company already has a super user, we talk about how a company should foster them in their organization. And with that, let's get into the interview. So today I am speaking with Randy Deutsch. He's an architect, educator, author, and speaker.

He's received the AIA Young Architect Award Chicago for having designed 100 large complex sustainable projects, actually 100 plus. He's written a number of books and we're gonna actually dig into a couple of them. But first and foremost, Randy, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much, Brittany. It's fantastic to be on.

Looking forward to talking with you. Well, and one thing I didn't mention, I actually was able to meet you at USMCA's Construction Technology and Virtual Design Conference that we both spoke at. I was a moderator for a panel and you were one of the keynote speakers. It was a pleasure to meet you in person then, but we've been sort of following each other on LinkedIn for a while. So I think it's kind of cool how that happened.

Absolutely. I find a lot of times since I'm more on the design side that there aren't enough opportunities for those on the construction, construction management, and owner's rep side of things to get into great conversations. So thank you for the opportunity. Yeah, my pleasure. So, well, is there anything that you want to tell the audience about yourself?

I mean, I did the quick introduction, but is there anything in particular that you want to share? I guess one thing I would add is I'm not a lifelong academic. So I have taught at the university, first at UIC in Chicago starting in 2001, more recently, last seven years at UIUC in Champaign-Urbana, but I'm not a lifelong academic. I come from practice, so I try to keep one foot in each zone. I try to bridge the gap between academia and practice, both for my students and also in terms of my research, which is practice-based research.

Yes, and actually we talked a little bit about that when we were speaking about your books. You prefer to reference practice-based research because it's easy to get into the weeds a bit about what could happen or what might happen and what other people have said. And you got to make sure things are practical and tangible for people to grab ahold of and really find useful. So I appreciate that about your approach. Yeah, I have found over the years that practice has always been about 15 or 20 years ahead of academia in a lot of ways.

And certainly now with how technology is speeding up in terms of on-ramping with new technology within our organizations, it's happening with such a fast clip that to ignore practice and what practice is doing right now would be catastrophic, I think in terms of researching and teaching. It's the perfect time right now, I think to have a foot in both camps. That's awesome. So let's start the discussion here about super users. You've written a book called Superusers Design Technology Specialists and the Future of Practice.

So first things first, what exactly is a super user? Super users, if people have ever heard the phrase before, think of it primarily in terms of somebody who really excels at using software. And I'm using it in a slightly different way. The super users I've identified within the architecture, engineering, and construction field are those that have the wherewithal to recognize a tool. They have the curiosity to inquire into tools, the confidence to mess around with tools, the capacity to learn or take on new tools.

We'll talk about this a little bit further, the creativity to combine tools. But here's the most important thing that most people don't recognize. They also have the interpersonal intelligence to connect with others. So much of our learning today, as you know better than anybody, is through social learning. It's not through having a sage on the stage, the university or in conferences, who's telling people what to do.

It's knowing who within your network you have to tap into to find out what you need to know right away. So that interpersonal intelligence, I think is a huge factor that helps to define what a super user is. The definition that you've coined around a super user is it's so multi-layered from the intellectual perspective where you're seeing how systems and tools work, but you hit the nail on the head. Interpersonal intelligence, having the desire and ability to take advantage of that social learning, that combination, it's gotta be super.

And that's why you've coined the word super user. I mean, that's really what companies are looking for now, right? At this juncture, it's difficult to just get an engineer who's really good at just plugging and chugging the numbers. You need them to have obviously all the social skills and is that true? I mean, is that what you're seeing as well?

Absolutely. So I think historically in our field, we have had individuals within our organizations, more from the IT standpoint. They also sometimes had the title of CAD manager, maybe even the BIM manager to some extent, or BIM coordinator, but they're frequently thought of by firm management up until today as being IT folks. So we have new software, we need to load it onto our hard drive or we need to get a subscription. We used to call them seats and we used to store the plastic cases in our closets.

That whole mindset, I think, has to change. And the good news is, and I know this really well as a professor to a hundred plus undergraduate students every year, as well as graduate students, that we're seeing a change in the generations. The current cohort of graduating students is what I would refer to as Gen Zs. And they're coming up at a time that's absolutely perfect exactly when we need to have them in our industry. And so firms are starting to recognize that it's not really the digital IT folks who sit in the corner of the office that solve the problems or put out the fires that are really going to help us improve in terms of productivity and help the firms get on board with the digital transformation that we're going through right now.

It's actually the people, yes, with technical skills, but more importantly, those who are well connected with others, great communicators, they're super collaborators, as well as many other attributes that I identify with in the book. But all those things are really more soft skills, attitudes, and mindsets, much more than they are skill sets. So when you talk about Gen Z, why do you think they're the right generation to really fulfill this need, if you will, for super users? Sure. So I can imagine that a number of your listeners maybe don't believe in this whole idea of identifying generations and labeling them, whether they're millennials or Gen Xers or even baby boomers.

But I have found, again, as a university professor for 20 years, that there is certain identifying characteristics for various generations that come through the university. In the past, we've all read or recognized ourselves as having somewhat negative connotations. The current cohort that is graduating from graduate school this year, those born 1995 and after, are the Gen Zs. And I think the reason why they are perfectly situated to walk into the super user role isn't just because they're digital natives. They don't stigmatize technology.

They came up with it. It's very natural for them. But I think even more important to that, to this point, is the fact that Gen Zs are very entrepreneurial. They're not at all entitled. They are very loyal.

They want to pay their dues. So they're actually right now looking forward for the next five to seven years to come into the AEC industry and work hard, do everything they can to help transform the industry. There is one characteristic though that is something that we should be a little bit concerned about. And that is irrespective of what their college degree is, they don't necessarily see themselves plugging themselves into one specific role. So if they graduate with an architecture degree, they don't necessarily just see themselves as architects or as construction managers or as engineers.

They actually want to own the whole process. When I say own, I don't mean, again, in an entitled way. I think what interests them is the overlap or the convergence of these different roles. So while they will pay their dues for the first five to seven years of their careers starting this year, there's going to come a time where we're going to see a lot more vertically-oriented firm startups, or they're going to join those firms. There's so many questions that I have as a follow-up because there are a number of things that you said that were pretty fascinating here.

One, because they're entrepreneurial, it makes sense that they don't necessarily want to hold the one specific role because they see the world in really more of a global sense. I would say as the generations come up, everybody's understanding that the world is more global anyway, but processes are even more global in the sense of, like you said, people are looking at more of the vertical view process from A to Z. So that's really interesting. And one thing that you didn't mention, and I'm curious as to your thought about, is the desire for this generation to the Gen Zs to align with the social cause.

Do you think that has something to do with how they will engage as well? Absolutely. I don't mean to deliberately downplay it. I don't think it is, at the moment, the most critical factor. The fact that they are very passionate about what they do, the fact that they need to have meaning as a critical part of the work that they do is going to be a very important factor moving forward for them.

But I also think they're realistic. Again, it might be their entrepreneurial side. It might be their loyal side. While that caring about the environment, for example, their passion and level of meaning in their work are critical things. But I think they recognize that it's not the critical factor coming out of the gate or coming out of school.

It's one that they know that they're going to grow into. As an academic, first of all, academics are not rewarded for looking into a crystal ball into the future. And so this is something that it's hard to ignore when you're a professor and you see different classes coming through the school. On the other hand, I think it's easy also to get distracted by some of the more familiar characteristics. And I think the one you're describing is one that we think of naturally with the younger generation that's coming up.

I think it's going to be a very important one, obviously, for the Earth in terms of global warming and climate change. It's going to be incredibly important. But I don't see it as the defining factor so much as some of the other ones I have mentioned. Then the other thing that's floating through my mind is Gen Xers are considered to be very entrepreneurial and wanting to be off the beaten path and wanting to go out on their own and not be part of the corporate animal, if you will.

I think what you're describing for the younger generations is a bit different in that they do want to have the overlap of roles and have that loyalty and make their stamp, if you will, in those first couple of years and then figure out what's next. At least that's what I'm hearing from you. Oh, absolutely. Just as a sort of thought experiment, if you imagine if there wasn't such a thing as an architect, an engineer, or a contractor, or even a fabricator right now, and you didn't have to actually pick which track you were going in in school.

Let's say you just graduated with an AEC degree, and then you went whatever direction you go in. I actually think that the current graduates, let's say they're 24 years old and they're going to graduate in May or June and they're going to embark out into the world, I don't see themselves plugging themselves into an architecture firm, an engineering firm, a construction company right away because that's not the way they think. That's not the way they operate. That's not the way they're built. So we basically have an old world paradigm, a legacy way of categorizing our different roles.

I'm sure you can appreciate this, given you've had multiple roles within the industry. It's something that's, I think, almost force-fed to them, that they have these career fairs and they have these sort of artificially separated roles that they play. I think we're going to see in the next five or 10 years much more of an overlap of these roles to the point where we're going to start questioning whether these individual firms are even necessary. Mm, that's so interesting. It's funny that you mentioned that, even with my background, I studied architectural engineering because I wanted to see the convergence of the different building systems myself.

And then I got disinterested in that to a point and I said, well, I also want to know the entire process and how things go from A to Z. I continued my education to pursue an understanding of that. And again, when I started working, I had a similar thing take place where I was like, oh, this is not enough. I need to see that convergence again to take place. And I keep saying this word because I know we're going to talk about it a little bit more.

But before we kind of head off of the topic of super users, I wanted to ask you, how do you find people that think like that who may not be coming out of that next generation, if you will? I mean, like say for instance, there's a super user within the company already and someone wants to find them and they're like, huh, I'm head of operations and I want to know who I need to really plug into so that we can get to this next layer of innovation.

So in the book beyond what I was calling the C factors and C factors, there's 10 of them having to do with being connectors or great communicators or collaborators and there's seven more beyond that. There's also 10 superpowers that I identify. And I think the superpowers are pretty important because these are characteristics that anybody in the organization can have. I've met people who aren't currently practicing who have all the telltale signs of being a super user and they recognize that themselves when they pick up the book or have a discussion about some of these characteristics.

So more specifically, if there are people within your organizations who not only are problem solvers but they identify the real problem that really needs solving, especially if it's a wicked problem that doesn't have very obvious solutions, that's a characteristic. Actually having the ability to connect the dots and to speak to people and communicate in such a way that is empowering, engaging. Yeah, I think one great example of this is from Shane Berger of Woods Bagot in the Superusers book where I ask him, what's the one thing that keeps you up at night as a design technology leader in his organization, a principle of a firm.

And he said it's actually wordsmithing. In other words, messaging, coming up with the right way to say what he needs to say to his team the next morning. He'll dream about it or wake up in the middle of the night. This is true of a lot of us obsessive types and we'll just get focused on it's how can I say this in a way that's understandable but also not demotivating to my team. And it's a way that helps them to understand what we need to do by contextualizing their work and so on.

We mentioned entrepreneurialism, somebody who is maybe an intrapreneur with an eye within their organization, maybe somebody who has these skills. It goes on from there but a couple more just I could throw out there. They see what they do not just in terms again in problem solving or just solving the issue or the problem that they were given to do but they see what they do in terms of contributing to something bigger. This would tie in I think very nicely with the Gen Zs we talked about a moment ago as seeing the work they do actually having a larger impact.

Super users are people that are teachable, they're open to that, they're great storytellers so they could not just repeat back what you said to them because they're such good contextualizers, they're able to replay it in such a way that's done in a narrative, they build it into a story. For this reason they actually most of them become great thought leaders, whether they are speaking at conferences or lunch and learns within their own organization or just through tweeting and writing posts on LinkedIn for example. They're very good at question asking so they know that remaining silent and then asking one killer question is a super user skill.

So again there's other characteristics I can go on about but I identify a number of these within the book specifically to answer the question you just asked which is do we really need to go outside our organization to find a super user? Do we need to wait for the Gen Zs to graduate, get a couple years experience before we start bringing them into our organizations or are there people already on board? There are many more but if I could add one more in particular that has been, was a real revelation or surprise for me is people who didn't feel like they were really adept or skilled at coding, scripting, programming but were passionate about either asking questions and doing a deep dive into a subject, maybe collecting public data and trying to find a solution.

I think firm leaders recognize that passion in their current employees and sometimes that's really what it takes. Sometimes the employee themselves hold themselves back because they don't see themselves as technical types so of course they can't be super users themselves. Here might be a good place for me to say that a super user isn't necessarily a term that everybody's using. I don't think the book is going to change that. Every firm has their own way of describing these folks.

Sometimes they're referred to as design technologists or design technology specialists. They go by many, many names. I don't think the name is really so important. I think it's some of these characteristics in the same person that helped to define them and differentiate them. Yeah, each one of the areas that you're describing is really interesting and I can't help to believe that if there's a super user who's in an organization and they're not getting the support that they need that they would be quite dissatisfied.

Do you find that these individuals might company hop or how do you think they would navigate through their career? I don't think they're any more dissatisfied than anybody else. In fact, they do what they do because they love doing it. That's something that was identified in the book and discussed at length. They don't deliver value, for example, by that it could be economic value or it could be design value and so on.

Everything they do, everything we've described and discussed so far, they do because they're really passionate, they're driven, they just enjoy doing it. That said, look at the company handbook or they go on the website and they look at the org chart. They look at the organizational chart and they don't see themselves, even if they're formally in the IT role. And for that reason, their career isn't something that's spelled out for them. It's defined in the book as a risk journey.

That's a wonderful phrase that Jordan Billingsley in the book describes. Every design technology specialist or superuser within an organization is taking on the risk of their own career. And that's because we're in this unusual time right now where firms and firm leaders are recognizing that these super users aren't just IT folks, but on the other hand, they don't know exactly how to fit them in. In the past, see once you became a licensed architect, you became either a project designer, a project architect, or project manager.

Whereas today, you might become a computational designer, a design technologist, or even a design technology leader or director. These new roles that are just starting to come about. And for this reason, to get back to your question, it's not so much out of dissatisfaction, it's out of the fact that because you're taking your own career into your own hands, you're not necessarily going to rise within the organization. You can count on one hand the number of firm principals who arrived at where they are due to digital technology, for example.

There are not many folks like that. You might have a few big managers who became firm principals, but again, you can count them on one hand. Versus rising within the organization because you're a designer, a project architect, or a technical architect, or the project manager becomes a business partner. So we don't see a lot of hopping around. One thing we do see, though, is other fields outside of architecture, engineering, construction recognize the skill set and the profile of the soft skills and the hard skills of a super user as being exactly what startups and verticals are looking for.

And so they get recruited to go into other fields outside of architecture, engineering, construction. When you're offered stock options and other perks, it's hard to turn that down, I think, at a certain point in your career, especially when what you do within your organization isn't necessarily always recognized in value. So do you think it's important for organizations to, for one, listen to their resource pool? But in addition to that, do you think it's important for them to encourage entrepreneurialism and allow for their employees to have that freedom to explore?

Yes, of course, you're going to need that career path because there are a number of people who need that structure. But do you think that companies need to be more open-minded about how these individuals might navigate? You hit it on the head when you said freedom, if there is one way to treat a super user. And again, not because they're entitled or because they demand it, just based on the trust that you normally would have for any of your employees. If you can entrust them to do the right thing and provide them with the freedom to contextualize the problem and solve what you ask them to solve, but also provide them with the freedom to come back saying, here's another way of looking at it.

You show up with a second alternative. I think that freedom is an incredible opportunity for the super user, but it's also for the firm. It will give the super user a chance to grow within their role, to prove themselves, to prove their value, to show that they're not the quote unquote other IT folks in the past, that they actually are playing a role within teams. And that freedom is the best way to entrust them with the super user role within the organization. Ian Keough, the founder of Dynamo and current CEO of a company called Hyper, he wrote the foreword to the book.

And he actually takes a completely different tack or stance on that question you just asked, which is, no, there's nothing you can really give them and offer them. There's no atta boys or atta girls. There's no gift cards. There's no promotions or titles or money you can throw their way. Since they do what they do because they enjoy doing it, there's really nothing you can do to keep a super user, he says.

And so the best thing you can do as a firm leader is to let them go to the startup or to the vertical. And this is said by somebody who, of course, has a startup company. Of course. We play against each other in the book. I invited Ian to write the foreword.

I loved what he wrote. I still do. I think it's great, but it's highly unusual. Usually a forward writer for a book is somebody who supports the thesis of the book. It's not that he doesn't support it.

He's saying, if you can go to a startup or vertical, and if you think you can transform the industry from within your organization, then do it and use this book, Super Users as your guide. I think it's a really interesting time that we're in right now, because we are seeing a lot of super users disbanding our field for startups and verticals. Yeah. Okay. So obviously my brain is going many different directions here and I'm trying to hone it in because I know I want to cover this convergence topic here.

So let's talk about convergence, the redesign of design. You mentioned in your book that traditional linear thinking no longer works in this converged upon world. I took that quote out because obviously there's a lot of technologies really converging and combining for the betterment of the one technology because you're on the design side. A lot of your focus has been on that, but you cover a number of topics here. The first area I wanted to touch space with you on is around BIM and computation.

So could you share with me a little bit about what the opportunities are for convergence with BIM and computation? BIM was thought of by a lot of people, I think, as a next generation CAD. I think it was mistakenly seen that way. And unfortunately, I think in a lot of ways it's still seen that way. The way I teach it to my sophomores, they learn how to put a high rise together.

For example, in my sophomore sequence of construction courses, I make it really clear that that's one flavor version of a BIM tool. It could be ARCHICAD, Microstation Factor Works, and so on. We just so happen to use Revit because most of the employers will require them to use that tool. What I try to do is reframe how BIM works. It's a souped up spreadsheet.

It's essentially an Excel file. I show them how these dialogue boxes pop up and they can either use the default that come with the software or they can override it. This idea of overriding the defaults is really what they're all about as nascent designers or early designers or sophomores in school. They're 19 years old. And this idea that you can actually design everything, including the tools that you use, is a fantastic mindset to have.

It's the mindset that there is no one particular tool, BIM or a computational tool. One isn't better than the other. They're just better at solving a problem that you have. So what they're really trying to do is move from a place of ambiguity and uncertainty, something that they as a designer are very comfortable with, to one of clarity and certainty. They're trying to create not just a 3D model that other people can understand what the building's about.

What they're really trying to do is reduce the risk that's inherent in constructing a building. So they recognize that they're creating, using BIM tools, they're creating a virtual version of the actual building at real scale on their computer. So why am I saying all this? I'm saying it because originally we had Grasshopper. So it's a visual programming tool.

It's a little bit of a shortcut for design folks because it meets you about halfway. So you're not just crunching numbers when you're programming. You're actually programming in a way that's very visual. For this reason, it helped designers jumpstart thinking computationally in their work. The problem was is Grasshopper didn't play very well with Revit, and so that's where Dynamo, Ian Keough, who I mentioned a moment ago, who came up with Dynamo, it's a Revit-friendly tool.

It started off as being a separate tool, and now Dynamo comes for free with Revit when you purchase it. When you bring the two together, BIM and computation, you're not only creating a clear and more certain future or solution, but at the same time you're moving from complexity in something that's very time intensive to something that's very simple and almost instantaneous. I think that's a really important point to make as well. It's this idea that computation allows us to automate processes. Computational thinking is just any time that you recognize that you're doing something for the second or third time that day, it should clue you to this idea that maybe you should automate it, because otherwise you're just sort of spinning your wheels.

You're just repeating yourself, and that's not very efficient. You should free yourself up to be creative and do work that's part of your core competency, and so we leveraged the computation tool within a tool like Revit or any other BIM tool to automate the processes and free yourself. Where does machine learning and AI fall into that? Ultimately, where that's going to go is this idea that right now we're taking baby steps in identifying the low-hanging fruit, the simple things that you can automate within our work processes.

Machine learning is going to eventually do that for us. We're going to start up a process or a tool. We're going to dump in all the criteria, the building code information, the zoning ordinance, building program, and so on and so forth, and we'll let the AI tool take it from there. Where machine learning comes in is it's going to recognize what we as either individuals, teams, or firms value, and it's going to start automating things and zeroing in on the solutions that historically we have looked for.

Much the way that Netflix and Amazon have selected movies and books that things feel like, I think machine learning is going to do that for us as well. One thing that you mentioned a little bit earlier is the need or desire for creating designs that are going to allow for more accurate builds. Maybe you said it differently. Taking that complexity and or ambiguity out of the design so that you can ensure that the constructability is there. So that leads me to think through another point that you have here around design optimization and fabrication.

There are a number of ways that companies approaching modular right now, but I wanted you to share with me your thoughts on what the opportunities are and what you think are the most practical approaches that you've seen or communicated with individuals about. The first one is asking yourself, as an individual in your career, but also as an organization, what do you really want to do? When you wake up in the morning, what gets you out of bed? What really energizes you? If the decision to go direct to fabrication, for example, from any of your tools is done just out of pure frustration, usually to get rid of a negative, I don't think that's going to be strong enough.

I think you need to overcome as an individual or as an organization, the impediments and the obstacles and challenges that insurance companies and the attorneys with the contracts that we currently have put in place in order to rewrite them and rewrite the playbook so that way we are leveraging the passion that we have for connecting these various processes and tools from design to fabrication, for example, but also to increase productivity and play to the strengths of the current cohort we were talking about earlier, the Gen Zs, the fact that they don't plug themselves into any one area, they want to be part of a continuum.

So right now I would say everyone working in BIM recognizes you are messing around with means and methods as a designer. It's almost impossible to avoid. It is super difficult to get away from that huge challenge and then that goes right into the contractual obligations there. It's a huge issue. So please continue with your thought there.

I think there's only been one major lawsuit, BIM related lawsuit to date. And I think it had more to do with communication, interestingly enough, given that we're talking a great deal about soft skills, interpersonal skills, and it really did have to do with Revit or BIM. It's this idea that you recognize if you're stuffing a bunch of stuff into a ceiling plenum of a school or another project, it's not only getting your job done because you got everything to fit, but you have to think in terms of the sequence.

Because again, the building that you're designing and building within your computer monitor, it also has the element of time. It has different dimensions that go beyond the 3D model and that time element has to do with a human hand getting up into that ceiling plenum and being able not only to insert and install this element, whether it's ductwork or the sprinklers or the conduit and so on and so forth. It's also the idea that in terms of sequence, one thing goes in after the other. It forces the designer to think in a way that they never had to think about before because they would just stuff everything in there and then it was up to the contractor to work all that out.

I think it's actually a really good thing for designers to think that way. Again, I think not to make too much of a point, but this current cohort that's coming up already is thinking this way because they don't see themselves plugging into any one particular role. They are very interested in looking at how the buildings that they design then can come together, whether it's direct fabrication or somebody else is constructing from their model. They are starting to think in terms of constructability. This is really important because I didn't have to engage them.

They were asking all the right questions and thinking the right way in terms of constructability. They themselves were connecting the dots between one side and the other. One more thing I might add because you were saying design optimization and fabrication. The optimization side of things is also a critically important part of the equation because again, the Gen Zs are very interested in assuring that they can live and the future generations can live well on this planet. So they're going to look for ways that minimize the use of natural resources, minimize the amount of energy that goes into the making of any solution that they come up with or arrive at.

For that reason, they don't see that as a separate thing. Just like BIM and computation can be overlapped. Similarly, design optimization is something that they naturally see you optimize the design solution. And then that leads naturally to coming up with a way to construct and fabricate. They with Dynamo and Revit, for example, or Archicad and Grasshopper or Rhino.

Well, and I can see the layer of even operations and energy utilization and reducing carbon footprint from the owner operator standpoint. So I can see that pulling into that design optimization as well. Absolutely. So obviously there are a bunch more convergence opportunities that you discussed in the book, but I wanted to ask you, you have a specific quote here. It says, there's no convenient way, paraphrasing here, but you say there's no convenient way to tie them into a framework.

There was no guiding theory for justification of how technologies should converge. And I wanted to get your take on that. Obviously, you identified some that you see coming about. I love the idea that there is no customization to it. Rather, it's all customized, right?

There's no limitation, if you will. I wanted to know what's most exciting to you. Is there any particular area that you see as a convergence opportunity that you wanted to share? So just taking a step back just real quickly, I would say that the convergence book came about because I had counted over 1,000 times in podcasts, but also in white papers and conference presentations in books and articles. People in our industry had said things are converging, but there was never even one time where anyone defined what that meant.

So as a good academic, I used the opportunity of the book to define what I was seeing that was converging. There was this major gap. Everyone's saying things are converging, but nobody's saying what it is. What's happening exactly? Like where, what?

Yeah. Exactly. So I think on a superficial level, you can say because of digitalization, everything's converging. I think that's an enabler, but that didn't go far enough. So convergence or the convergences identified in the convergence book came out in 2017.

It's still very true today because design professionals leverage combinatorial creativity. If you don't get to design a building or a chair or whatever, another way to enact or act on your creativity, your inherent creativity in your field. This is true of engineers, contractors, and architects is just to bring two separate things together and create something new. And so a lot of people were doing this in the very bottom up, a very natural, and sometimes the word emergent is used. So it's a form of emergence where people were just naturally doing it.

And it was fairly easy for me to identify the different ways that things were converging and then just find people who had serving suggestions or examples of these ideas. So this is a long-winded way of saying that for this reason, yeah, you can be a Monday morning quarterback and take these things and package it in some way that seems like it's a worldview or a gestalt or a way of going about practice and so on. But I think that would be very artificial because I don't believe there is a limit to human creativity.

And that's the thing, the combinatorial creativity. And again, this is identified by Einstein, but it goes back to Leonardo da Vinci. Bringing two separate things together is something that helps to define us as human beings. So why would we limit it, let's say to six convergences, package it, trademark it, brand it, and deliver it? I'm sure somebody could, but I'm pretty sure there'd be a seven to eighth, ninth and 10th way to go about doing it that could be just as effective.

So getting to your question to what I'm most excited about, this actually is somewhat annoying to a lot of my friends and colleagues, is how come you're not more passionate about XYZ? To me, it's not any one tool. Again, I can't really stress this enough. I just think of all the tools that we use as tools in a toolbox. I think communication and messaging is a wonderful tool that we can use, as I was mentioning a little bit earlier.

I think all of these separately are really important and in combination are important, but I am not really excited or passionate about anyone because they're all really necessary to move things forward. What I am really excited about is this idea that we spend a lot of time talking about collaboration and talking about teams, but it's really the individuals that we select to be in our teams that are going to help transform our organizations and overall our industry. And so I'm really passionate right now about not only identifying people who already have these characteristics, but as a educator for the last 20 years, also in finding ways to educate the upcoming generation of students who are interested in entering our field so there wouldn't be a skills gap moving forward to help them identify in themselves some of the skillsets that they already have, the interpersonal intelligence,

mindset skills and attitudes that they may be downplay because they don't see it being an important thing and actually helping them recognize that it is the critical factor that separates them from the IT folks and everybody else that's entered our field before. I can hear and observe the passion that you have around ensuring that the next generations come up, but also as a practitioner, just sharing with your colleagues through your written research, you really do have a desire to encourage and inspire the people that you are encountering to acknowledge these interpersonal skills, the social skills that will help us to be more collaborative and define that more clearly and really help us be more intentional.

So I really, really enjoy your answer. Really just wanna thank you for what you're doing and how you're contributing to the industry. Thanks, Brittany. I love everything that I do. And I loved working as an architect for over 20 years in the industry and I love teaching for the last 20 years.

I wouldn't change a single day. And I really appreciate your recognizing that and having me on your show. Yeah. So the last question I wanna ask you, Randy, is how can someone get in touch with you if they want to connect with you? The easiest way would be just to go to my website.

It's www.randydeutch.com. It sounds easier than said because Deutsch is hard to spell. It's R-A-N-D-Y-D-E-U, T as in Tom, S as in Scott, C-H dot com. At the website, I've got all my upcoming speaking gigs listed. I have lots of videos and references to all my books.

A lot of information there, but I think importantly too, there's an email address at the bottom. I'm happy to be able to click on and I'm happy to talk. I talk all day long. I do some listening as well from time to time. Happy to talk with everybody.

It's been a real pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much, Randy. Thanks, Brittany. Really appreciate it. Take care.

If you liked this episode, find out more about Randy in the show notes at constructor.com slash Randy Deutsch. That's R-A-N-D-Y-D-E-U-T-S-C-H. If you learned something valuable in this episode, share it with your friends and colleagues. You can also let me know you've enjoyed our discussions by connecting with me on Twitter at Brittany underscore C-T or find me on LinkedIn. You can also email me at Brittany at constructor.com.

That's B-R-I-T-T-A-N-I-E at construct double R dot com. Don't forget, if you haven't subscribed to the podcast, do so at your favorite podcast player. I look forward to continuing the constructor journey with you next week. Thank you. Thank you.

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